1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Samovar

SAMOVAR (Russ. samovarū), an urn for making tea after the Russian fashion; it is usually of copper, and is kept boiling by a tube filled with live charcoal passing through the centre. The word is usually taken in Russia to mean “self-boiler” (samū, self, and baritī, boil), but it is more probably an adaptation of a Tatar Word sanabar, a tea-urn.